Page:The Works of H G Wells Volume 11.pdf/111

 tiny planet, how could we exist, how could we continue, were we not sustained in every moment by the Mercy and Wisdom of God? The flimsier life is, the greater the wonder of his Providence. Not a sparrow," said Sir Eliphaz, and then enlarging the metaphor with a boom in his voice, "not a hair of my head, falls to the ground without His knowledge and consent I am a man much occupied. I cannot do the reading I would. But while you have been reviling the works of God I have been thinking of some wonders"

Sir Eliphaz lifted up a hand with thumb and finger opposed as though he held some exquisite thing therein.

"The human eye," said Sir Eliphaz, with an intensity of appreciation that brought tears to his own

"The cross-fertilisation of plants

"The marvellous transformations of the higher insects

"The highly elaborate wing scales of the Lepidoptera.

"The mercy that tempers the wind to the shorn lamb

"The dark warm marvels of embryology; the order and rhythm and obedience with which the cells of the fertilised ovum divide to build up the perfect body of a living thing, yea, even of a human being—in God's image. First there is one cell, then two; the process of division is extremely beautiful and is called, I believe, karyokinesis; then after the two come four, each knows his part, each divides cer-